In this Pauri, Satguru Nanak enumerates the various paths that were practised by persons for attaining at-one-ment and peace of mind, and shows their inefficacy -By mere thinking and intellectual reasoning true wisdom (the realization of the Divine within) cannot be attained, though one goes on thinking millions of times.

By merely keeping one's mouth shut and remaining tongue tied, one cannot restrain the mind from wandering in all directions, although one may maintain superficial silence for a very long time, like the heron or the cat watching for its prey

By mere fasting, one cannot overcome the desire of indulging in the ephemeral pleasures of the taste and tongue, though moved by this fasting the world may bring to him all the rich dainties of the whole created universe.

Thousands of intellectual flights cannot take one to the Realm of Truth (True wisdom or realization of the Divine within)

Question: Then how shall one be at-one-with truth and how shall the veil of ignorance (selfishness, worship of flesh and blood) be removed?

Ans. O searcher after Truth, intone thyself with the Eternal Law which controls the whole universe, ever since its creation, and which is embedded in the very depths of the human soul.

Note : However much depraved a person may be, the still voice within warns him at every wrong step; but his confirmed habits of wrong actions carry him away. ¬In the human stage of evolution every one get the power of judging the right from the wrong. This power is engrained in every human soul. This innate power coupled with righteous actions and the company of God conscious persons who show the path of Divine Realization through meditation on the Divine name, intunes one with the infinite. One becomes at-one with the Divine Law. He submits to the Divine will under all circumstances and get freedom from egoism. The sense of mine and thine, which forms the dark curtain of ignorance and is a bar to self realization, is eradicated and a spiritual link established with all mankind and the created universe.

Note: Jap Ji Sahib is the essence of the teachings of Guru Granth Sahib, the holy scriptures of the Sikhs.It deals with the main ideals which should guide a Gursikh, "A searcher after Truth" under the directions of the Satguru.

How can we realize the truth?

This Pauri at first deals with the methods and practices generally in vogue but which do not lead to realization and peace. In the end Satguru gives his own method. Be at-one-with the Divine Law, innate in the human mind.

I would like to expand a bit more on this. There have been a lot of different interpretations of this pauri by different sikh scholars which becomes a bit more confusing rather than putting a light of clarity on it.

However Master Teja Singh and many others have interpreted the above as:-

Thousands of 'intellectual flights' cannot take one to the Realm of Truth (True wisdom or realization of the Divine within).

I would like to expand on this a bit more.

Cunning nature needs thought process. One can not con anyone without planning for it. Hence being 'smarter and holier than thou' needs a lot of thinking which again becomes repetitve if we interpret the first verse SOCH as thought process rather than SuCH meaning to purify mainly by water.

One of the more important things to notice is that 'thought process' is a singular collective noun. One can think about the same many times but one can not have mutiple thought processes for the same, the way it is mentioned in the verse number one.

I have no idea why the sikh scholars take the word 'intellect' as MANMAT when they are using the same to understand GURBANI??!!

We all know Guru Nanak Dev ji and all other Gurus, the founders of this beautiful way of Gurmat life have always been precise -to the point- in whatever they wrote as Gurbani. They re-emphasised the same thought process by giving different examples but they never repeated themselves in the same verse.

Share This Page

Three Muslim teenagers who bombed a Sikh temple in Germany have been found guilty of attempted murder, aggravated assault, and causing an explosion – but not terrorism. This is despite the bombers’ links to local Salafist organizations, terrorist sympathies, and accessing Islamic...

About Us

Our community has been around for many years and pride ourselves on offering unbiased, critical discussion among people of all different backgrounds. We are working every day to make sure our community is one of the best.

Like us on Facebook

Support SPN

The management works very hard to make sure the community is running the best software, best designs, and all the other bells and whistles. We'd really appreciate your support!